“This must stop”: Scholars on Catholic Relief Services’ Contraception Programs in Africa

Nairobi, 13 March, 2024 / 8:55 PM

The alleged participation of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in the promotion of contraception and abortion programs in some African countries must be halted, leaders of the Lepanto Institute (LI) and Population Research Institute (PRI) have said.

The call on the humanitarian arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to stop their alleged engagement in programs that foster population reduction in a section of African countries was made during a March 6 virtual press conference, during which the findings of a joint 120-page report by both organizations on the subject were highlighted.

In his input, the LI President, Michael Hichborn, said, “For more than a decade, CRS has denied that its projects included contraception and condom promotion, but this report proves otherwise.”

“In all of the CRS project areas our team visited, it was clear that CRS was far more interested in working with other NGOs to implement U.S.-funded contraception outreach programs than with the local Catholic Church hierarchy,” Hichborn said during the conference that sampled had evidentiary documents that show the involvement of CRS in U.S. aid programs that promote population reduction programs, including the use of contraceptives and abortion in Cameroon, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe.

“This must stop,” he said, adding that “first and foremost, CRS should have first sought permission from each and every local Bishop, from each and every Diocese in which it intends to operate, disclosing each and every aspect of the project and committing to full cooperation with the Diocese.”

The LI President faulted the sidelining of Catholic Bishops in the CRS activities in the African countries the report sample. 

He explained, “Bishops are, after all, charged with protecting and promoting the spiritual welfare of their flock. They are and always should be the first and best judges of whether a given project could help or harm the souls God has entrusted to them.”

In the report, LI and PRI officials call upon Catholic Bishops in Africa to “compel the CRS to follow Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio on the service of charity, which mandates that responsible Bishops refuse to receive funds from any charitable organization which pursue ends contrary to the doctrine of the Church.”

The report further indicates that “USAID and PEPFAR - which account for the lion's share of CRS' annual budget - make contraceptive and condom outreach a top priority. And the DREAMS project, which CRS helped implement, made increasing contraceptive use a primary goal."

Also speaking during the March 6 virtual conference, PRI President, Steven Mosher, said, “The Bishops who serve on the CRS Board of Trustees have a grave moral responsibility, as well as sufficient legal responsibility over the handling of funds to ensure that CRS withdraws from such programs.”

Making reference to Germain Grisez, one of America's theologians, he said, “The Catholic faithful who have donated to CRS in recent years for the fight against AIDS did so because they expected the program to be run in a distinctly Catholic way.”

“Had they expected something different, they might have donated to a secular AIDS organization. If CRS officials have used the donations differently than they led donors to expect, CRS officials have misappropriated those funds,” Mosher added.

ACI Africa reached out to CRS for comment but did not receive a response.